by James Richardson

Created on: October 02, 2008

Have you ever tried to sell an old trinket or other item on eBay? What did you think of eBay's interface for building your listing? Sure, it's user friendly enough, but in the end all you probably got was a plain, basic listing with one low-resolution photo. Any additional photos, higher resolution, graphics, templates, etc. amounted to extra fees.

As someone who has done a fair amount of eBay selling, I know firsthand the frustration that building a listing through the auction giant's website can be. And then there was Auctiva. I discovered Auctiva when looking through a competitor's auction. She had an attractive template, a gallery of high-resolution photos, and a scrolling list of her other current auctions. The template advertised, "Powered by Auctiva."

Auctiva (www.auctiva.com is a suite of powerful tools for eBay sellers. Whether you run a complete eBay store, or just want to have a "web garage sale," Auctiva can help you out immensely. What this web-based program does is creates a streamlined environment for building your eBay auctions and then managing them - from posting to eBay straight through to shipping and delivery. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but nothing you can't tackle in an evening. The interface itself works like a standard word processor, and most other prompts and fields are well explained.

With Auctiva you can create your eBay listing(s), apply a template that gives it some pizzazz, add a whole gallery of high-resolution photographs, and then schedule the listing to post at a time that you set.

Auctiva works particularly great for someone who is doing multiple listings. The software allows you to create what's called profiles, which is a predetermined group of settings. For example, if you're selling off a large collection of dishes, you may find that you want to use the same eBay listing category. Simply create a profile titled "Dishes" and set that category to the default. Other settings can be saved in a profile as well such as template used, font sizes, shipping charges, etc. You can also make master profiles that include information that doesn't change such as your contact info, return policy, etc.

Images can be sorted into folders and even tagged with captions. This allows for fast indexing and searching when you're ready to post images in your listings.

After you've made the sale, Auctiva tools can continue to assist your eBaying efforts. Assuming you accept PayPal, you can set up Auctiva to automatically invoice winners

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